Exploring land recently released by ice (geologically speaking)

More Anchorage Moose

Bastille Day, and I’m cycling on Anchorage’s Campbell Creek trail. I stop around five miles up the trail to watch three moose graze on streamside willows. There are three moose, an adult female and a brace of calves. At first I miss my camera but then realize it would spoil my concentration. With a camera I wouldn’t notice that the mother’s dark brown coat provides a nice background for the lighter color of her children or enjoy how their mule-like ears flicker in my direction when I braked.

I passed through a cloud of urban noise and scenes to get to the moose: riding under rush hour traffic, over a dormant sled dog trail, near a shackled homeless man and the twin policemen who cuffed him. I startled a clutch of geese with markings as Canadian as a maple leaf and flew past a car lot and the theatre offering matinee performances of “The Adventures of Dusty Sourdough.” But the moose munch away as they did before man occupied the Anchorage Bowl.